We would like apologise unreservedly once more for this error. We didn’t realise that the film that we chose was a copy, we would have instantly removed the submission from the competition if we had. As it stands, the original winner has now had their prizes revoked and we will be announcing a new winner soon.

Amsterdam based creatives Bas van de Poel and Daan van Dam made these clever T-shirts where Dutch football supporters can flip their shirts over their heads and become their favorite player as they root for their team.

Clever, right? Yes, it's very funny, and highly apropos as football players are known for yanking their shirts over their heads in celebration. However, we've seen this fun trick before.

The New Epson campaign from Ogilvy Paris has a lovely portrait of an aged lady, where the lines in her face seem to be actual lines of text, each line telling the story of her life. Epson signs off with "long live memories", with tiny white script in the right hand corner, sits back and likely waits for the awards. The image is currently showing up on various shortlists, this is the season.

But the awards will not come. Because Dove already did this. With the same image. The same discreet white script, then stating "Love Your Life", and - here's the kicker - produced by the same agency. Yes, Ogilvy Paris did that one too, you can view it in Lürzers Archive . Back in 2008 this ad was good enough to see the light of day at Lürzers and various adfests, however, little birdies tell me that Dove have not seen nor signed off on this ad.

Which may explain why Ogilvy Paris tried again and re-used it for Epson. Photos cost money youknow, these days we're squeezing blood out of rocks to make ends meet. Careful you don't squeeze true creativity to death while you're at it.

Here's a fun pair - the ad for Amsterdam Arena claims to be the first ad that dials a phone, and as we know here in Badland never say that you're the first, you'll jinx it. Of course someone else has already been clever enough to use DTMF tones in radio ads making the ad dial the phone. Here's an example from Radioactive L.A back in 2003.

Copywriters get to have final word on how exactly something should be said in any given ad, that is until the ASA listens to it. This British Gas advert which aired in December last year has been banned for "Implying that British Gas would attend same day call-outs, even over Christmas". The phrasing that set complaints off was : "You can reach us every day. Even over Christmas.", in combo with a cute animated British Gas car pulling up to help the house owner in the ad with the broken boiler.
British gas disputed the complaint, saying that they wanted the ad to show that they deal with queries every day, even on christmas - thing is, the british gas truck doesn't show up quite as fast as the ad implies.

RO, a.k.a the ReklamOmbudsman in Sweden have decided to ban the Arvika Festival ad campaign, even if Arvika Festival couldn't get anyone to air it on TV in the first place. The film shows a young woman saying hi to the camera, apparently naked, and she then proceeds to masturbate. It ends on a super stating: "7 months away, get ready, 15-17 July 2010"

Hey, it *is* space, after all, shouldn't it be cool like the movies? Apparently NASA thinks so. For each mission it has been creating posters and, well, some of them are pretty good knock-offs!http://news.cnet.com/2300-11386_3-10002908.html

I've never quite understood the strategy of selling a beer on being "cold" (which would be my job to keep it so) rather than tasty, but everyone knows that an ice-cold beer at the height of summer is when lagers are at their best. So Spendrups did an ad with the headline "have a really cold summer", suggesting cold beer on hot days. They've now been reprimanded for having the audacity suggesting that beer should be drunk at all, forget seeing anything as advanced as the Jupiler Ice Beer poster here in Sweden.

This is the offending Spendrups ad that ran last summer. Shocking, isn't it?

On the topic of twin ads, Mike Wolfsohn has posted this Adage article: In Defense of Inevitable Creative Outcomes, where he says that advertising isn't an originality contest, but a tool where one should do what's appropriate for the issue at hand. He rightly points out that input effects the outcome as well, as too many briefs are the exact same starting point, so landing on the same end-point shouldn't surprise anyone.

Too frequently ads are accused of being rip-offs of music videos or movies, without recognizing the talent that is required to identify creativity within one artistic genre and translate it successfully into another -- namely marketing.

He makes a good argument, and ties it up nicely with: "originality should be celebrated, risk should be rewarded and innovation should be admired. But so, too, should the ability to translate popular culture into effective marketing. Not when it's done illegally, surreptitiously, or dishonestly -- but when it's done humbly, artfully and insightfully"

Banned ad of the week, last years "Tombola Bingo" advert where a british upper class (and white) bloke sits on the beach in his tuxedo, having every word he says repeated in song by a hawaiian shirt clad ukelele playing local (thus, a black man). Two people complained that it presented a negative racial stereotype. Only one whined that it seemed to try and do the song-funny of "Real American heroes" and failing (me).

The ASA considered that the relationship between the two characters "was defined as the power of the white man over the black man", because of the difference in their dress and the way the black man was portrayed as less intelligent in that he repeated everything the white man said, even "Thank you, Tito".

Australia is apparently running this spot for the *dating* service during the upcoming Oscars, while the U.S. is not. Yea free speech down under! Or is it more, yeah good taste in the U.S.? Latter! Ashley Madison claims there’s hypocrisy at work because of the themes in the movies that night. (Maybe, but the films don’t openly advocate the lifestyles they depict, unlike the dating service which encourages you to cheat.) Here’s the thing though, and it’s what kept Mancrunch from ever having a realistic shot at getting on the Super Bowl, and has nothing to do with gay, not-gay, single, not single, etc.— The ad just ain’t that good. Come Oscar night, there are going to be parodies by the best FX houses (and plastic surgeons) in the world doing segments with actors throughout the evening, and then this comes on? It’s like student work with actors and spray paint. The end.

We have Head / Novak Djokovic viral movie vs Budweiser's Kasey Kahne commercial, both using instant replay to reveal much more happening in a split second than ever could happen, but with Head dragging that thin joke along so long I almost shot my screen to put it out of its misery.

I'm pretty sure I've seen the instant replay gag before though. What about you?

Yes, Matt just wrote about it on agencyspy, but I was actually tipped off by the French badland ninja @joelapompe a few days ago. I've been trying to get a comment from anyone involved, but everyone so far has declined. Matt found that it made the papers in Jerusalem: the Jerusalem post.